Radio spectrum maps for emerging IoT and 5G networks: Applications to smart buildings

The high demand for wireless Internet including emerging Internet of Things (IoT) applications is putting extreme pressure on better utilisation of the available radio spectrum. The expected spectrum “crunch” requires highly efficient radio resource management schemes with low complexity and high responsiveness to the changing network conditions. Spectrum sharing is regarded as an essential approach to regaining access to otherwise unused spectrum and it is considered an essential component in the development of IoT and 5G networks. Spectrum sharing can be conducted at different time scales. As the time scale of the operation of spectrum sharing decreases, the possibility for utilising more available spectrum holes increases. However, the shorter time scale brings with it challenges. Efficient decisions regarding the use of spectrum sharing require accurate knowledge of the spatial and temporal spectrum use in a geographical area of interest. This knowledge can be represented in Radio Spectrum Maps which need to be generated efficiently and accurately. In this paper we give an overview of the spectrum sharing concept for IoT and 5G networks. We also present our research on spectrum sharing to enable Smart Building IoT applications.